Working Group on Urbanization and Health

More than half of the world population now lives in urban places. This increasing urbanization raises new health issues, regarding health determinants, inequities in health, and the roles social, economic, urban planning and health care policies in sharing the distribution within and between cities. There is a compelling need to better understand:

Inter-relationships between process of urbanization and Health

Complex links between urban dynamics and inequalities in health

Process of cooperation and sharing of knowledge between the research world and public action

To address these challenges the 30th General Assembly of the International Council for Science (ICSU) approved in October 2011 a new scientific programme on Health and Wellbeing in the Changing Urban Environment. This initiative proposes a systems approach as conceptual framework for considering the multi-factorial nature of both the determinants and the manifestations of health and wellbeing in urban populations.

IGU CHE has been involved in the new ICSU initiative from its early conceptual phase. Recently a European working group on Urbanization and Health was setup to contribute to research on the relationships between urban dynamics and health from a European and Global Health perspective.

The purpose of the group is to build bridges across scientific disciplines, from health sciences, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. Further, engage in a collaborative process gathering multiple stakeholders including policy-makers, local government and the community of scientists. To promote the production of scientifically sound policy relevant research findings and jointly work on publication and dissemination.

Special issue on Challenges and responses to population health and urbanization in the 21st century in Open Access Journal Sustainability

Urbanization has significant impacts on people’s quality of life in the 21st century.The rapid process of urbanization raises the question of how individuals and the public, not-for-profit and private sectors in urban environments can make services available and accessible and meet the demands of a growing vulnerable population, especially in developing countires and megacities.There is a need to understand how regional differences in urbanization and population health, their challenges and health impacts, and people’s accessibility and utilization of public services will support planning and policy making for sustainable development in our future. This special multi-disciplinary issue calls for papers addressing these issues and others linked to public health, population aging and urbanization in geography, urban planning, policy studies, etc. It is supported by the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Health and the Environment (CHE) for the“Pre-conference on Shaping Geographies of Health, Health Care and Environment”and sessions on environment and health in the 33rd International Geographical Congress (IGC) of IGU.

A first conference on “Urban dynamics and health: concepts, methods and applications” was initiated in September 2013 by the Laboratoire « Espace, Santé et Territoires » from University Paris Ouest (www.espace-sante-territoires.fr/) and the French national network of local decision-makers for public health (www.espt.asso.fr/).